Israeli trailers removed from Palestinian property near Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Four Israeli trailers were removed from a Palestinian man's privately owned land in a Bethlehem-area village on Thursday, a popular committee spokesman said.

Ahmad Salah, a spokesman for a local popular committee, told Ma'an that Muhammad Abdullah Sbeih had received an Israeli court ruling that the trailers -- planted by an Israeli man who runs a nearby settler outpost -- must be removed from his land in the village of al-Khadr.

The trailers were installed by settlers four years ago in Sbeih's field in the Ein al-Qassis area, Salah said.

Sbeih had received an earlier ruling from an Israeli court that the trailers must be removed, but the settlers had refused to implement the decision, Salah said.

When Sbeih complained again, the settlers were forced to remove the trailers after they failed to submit any deeds to prove ownership.

However, settlers merely moved the trailers to another privately owned field in al-Khadr, belonging to Khadr Ali Abu Ghalyoun, Salah added.

He said the trailers were installed by the Jewish extremist Hananel Shear-Yashuv -- known as Hananiya -- who runs the illegal settler outpost of Sde Boaz, which sits on eight dunams (two acres) of Palestinian land nearby.

The Israeli news site Haaretz reported in March 2013 that Israel had issued demolition orders for the trailers, quoting a state attorney as saying the four trailers were to be demolished "within a short time-range."

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

The international community regards all settlements built on occupied Palestinian land to be illegal, while the Israel government distinguishes between the more than 100 state-sponsored settlements and dozens of unauthorized outposts.

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.